Rouge Bouquet / Joyce Kilmer
"Rouge Bouquet" or "The Wood Called Rouge Bouquet" is a lyric poem written in 1918 by American poet, essayist, critic and soldier Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918). Rouge Bouquet :In a wood they call the Rouge Bouquet :There is a new-made grave to-day, :Built by never a spade nor pick :Yet covered with earth ten metres thick. :There lie many fighting men, :Dead in their youthful prime, :Never to laugh nor love again :Nor taste the Summertime. :For Death came flying through the air :And stopped his flight at the dugout stair, :Touched his prey and left them there, :Clay to clay. :He hid their bodies stealthily :In the soil of the land they fought to free :And fled away. :Now over the grave abrupt and clear :Three volleys ring; :And perhaps their brave young spirits hear :The bugle sing: :“Go to sleep! :Go to sleep! :Slumber well where the shell screamed and fell. :Let your rifles rest on the muddy floor, :You will not need them any more. :Danger’s past; :Now at last, :Go to sleep!” :There is on earth no worthier grave :To hold the bodies of the brave :Than this place of pain and pride :Where they nobly fought and nobly died. :Never fear but in the skies :Saints and angels stand :Smiling with their holy eyes :On this new-come band. :St. Michael’s sword darts through the air :And touches the aureole on his hair :As he sees them stand saluting there, :His stalwart sons; :And Patrick, Brigid, Columkill :Rejoice that in veins of warriors still :The Gael’s blood runs. :And up to Heaven’s doorway floats, :From the wood called Rouge Bouquet :A delicate cloud of buglenotes :That softly say: :“Farewell! :Farewell! :Comrades true, born anew, peace to you! :Your souls shall be where the heroes are :And your memory shine like the morning-star. :Brave and dear, :Shield us here. :Farewell!” History The poem commemorates an intense German artillery bombardment of an American trench position in the Rouge Bouquet wood near the French village of Baccarat, Meurthe-et-Moselle, on 7 March 1918, which resulted in the loss of 19 American soldiers with the 165th Infantry Division.Duffy, Francis Patrick. Father Duffy’s Story. (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1919), 350.Harris, Stephen L. Duffy's War: Fr. Francis Duffy, Wild Bill Donovan, and the Irish Fighting 69th in World War I (Washington, DC: Potomac Books Inc, 2007). Kilmer was a sergeant in the New York National Guard's "The Fighting 69th Regiment" which was part of the 165th Infantry Regiment involved in the attack. He composed the poem immediately after the bombardment, and it was first read over their graves in March 1918.Harris, Stephen L. Duffy's War: Fr. Francis Duffy, Wild Bill Donovan, and the Irish Fighting 69th in World War I (Washington, DC: Potomac Books Inc, 2007). The poem was first published two weeks after Kilmer's death in battle on 30 July 1918 during the Second Battle of the Marne in the 16 August 1918 issue of Stars and Stripes.Kilmer, Joyce. "Rouge Bouquet" in Stars and Stripes (16 August 1918).Mitgang, Herbert. Civilians Under Arms: The Stars and Stripes, Civil War to Korea. (SIU Press, 1959), 146-148.United States Army. Army Expeditionary Force, 1917-1919. (New York: G.P. Putnam's sons, 1919), 78-80. Recognition The poem was read over Kilmer's own grave when he was interred in France. To this day, it is a tradition of the Fighting 69th to read the poem at memorial services for fallen members of the regiment. References *''In Flanders Fields, and other poems of the First World War'' (edited by Brian Busby). Arcturus Publishing, 2005, 153-156. Notes External links * 69th Regiment "Rouge Bouquet" web page. Category:Poetry by Joyce Kilmer Category:1918 poems Category:World War I poems Category:American poems Category:Text of poem Category:War poems Category:20th-century poems